In Which the Captain Worries
by Zymm
Summary: Cassian Andor worries about every possibility, every outcome and every conceivable future.


Cassian Andor was a worrier, someone ready to fret at the minorest of thoughts, at the smallest of occasions. He was accustomed to bouts of internal turmoil, running scenarios in his head of the most likely course of action; in that way, he was no different than his droid comrade, save for his lack of mathematical precision in the matter.

Cassian Andor also hid this side of him very, very well.

To all that would look at him, he was a put-together captain of the rebel forces, with few words spoken but monumental meaning behind each thought. He was always calm and collected, always reacting to every situation with a precise, quick action. If someone had accused him of anxious tendencies and bouts of gut-wrenching worry, they would be laughed halfway off of Yavin 4.

That was simply because Cassian Andor was also a damn good spy.

Jyn knew, though; she could sense the wheels turning in his mind, the faraway look in his eyes. When she would be relaxing with him, halfway on his chest, one arm and leg slung lazily over him, she could tell. He knew that she could tell, because she gave that look that was just perfectly Jyn-ish. It would be quiet, peaceful, both relaxing from a hard day of training, and next thing he knew, she was giving him a look with those inquisitive eyes, her brows drawn together, her pink lips in a straight line.

"You're thinking about something awfully hard, Cassian." She commented, setting her chin on his chest as she gazed up at him, half amused, half curious. "Don't strain yourself, now."

"I'm just thinking." Cassian said defensively, though that would be his downfall. His quick reaction to cover up his vulnerability had only in turn played him right into her greedy hands.

"You're worrying about something, aren't you?" Jyn commented, pushing off of his chest. She wore an amazed, cocky grin on her face as she studied him like a science experiment, making him almost blush.

"You get this little line, right here-" Jyn said, pointing a finger smack into the space between his eyebrows, drawing a delicate line. "-when you're thinking about something, weighing the odds. You do it all the time on our missions."

"It's nothing." Cassian said, the defensiveness still rising in his voice. God, he was only digging his grave deeper at this point, allowing Jyn to see how much it did bother him. It was something he'd kept hidden his whole life, an easy secret because no one had actually ever cared enough to pick up on the little hints.

"But we aren't on a mission, are we, captain?" Jyn asked, knowing her nickname would rub him the wrong way. Cassian rolled his eyes, pushing the petite girl to his side, out of line of view from his face.

"I just consider possibilities." He tried to say, a rush of embarrassment coming over him. It sounded monumentally more stupid out loud than in his head.

"Of what?" Jyn asked, and he noticed that the joking tone in her voice had left, now replaced with something else. It was ironic, because it was almost worry.

"Everything." Cassian responded, attempting to shrug it off, to be out of her gaze.

Jyn opened her mouth to respond, to form a deeper, penetrative question that would surely leave Cassian even more uncomfortable. But Cassian was saved by the sharp voice of K-2 coming down the hall, sounding more irritated than normal.

"Cassian, have you seen Jyn? She has been skipping her evening chores and I've had to pick them up in her absence! How rude of her!" The robot scoffed, his voice echoing off the halls. Cassian shot Jyn an amused look, to which she just shrugged, careless as ever.

"We aren't done talking about this." Jyn warned, before she darted into Cassian's bathroom, hidden from K-2's sight.

Cassian worried about the future, about his role, about his relationships, about the galaxy. He worried about each mission individually, each trip becoming its own independant box of worries stored in a catalog in his brain. He would carefully take each out at night to go through more possibilities, thus expanding the worries even more. It was a vicious cycle.

He worried about Chirrut and Baze. They didn't fit in with the mold of the rebel base quite as well as the other members of their rag-tag team, instead finding it hard to integrate themselves. They took shit from no one, but Cassian had overhead other recruits criticizing their roles, their skills. They were a bit too off from the normal, and thus were treated as outsiders. Cassian hated it, but he knew that eventually the war would end, and the rebellion cease to be a small, homogeneous group. He knew that eventually some mold would break, whether it be that of Chirrut and Baze, or that of the rebellion 'natives'. Cassian wondered about which it would be.

He worried about Bodhi. Bodhi had fit in perfectly on the base, always eager to talk about any and every aircraft, always willing to lend a hand to any recruit in need. He was a favorite of most of the base, a shining figure of the rebellion. Cassian worried that Bodhi may soon outgrow the base and be thrown into the nasty politics of it all, the politics Cassian tried to avoid. Bodhi couldn't put up with the politics, Cassian knew; Bodhi was perfect the way he was, but he was not of the strong grade to withstand the mold of the political rebellion. It was even nastier than the rebellion they fought in.

He worried about K-2. He still was not fully 'fixed' from their previous experiences, and Cassian would still have to tweak him every once and a while, fixing a bug that had manifested itself. Cassian worried about his dependance on the droid, his sad, pathetic attachment and reliance he would never own up to. He worried about his restrained feelings on the matter, the childhood he had experienced with the droid. He worried that some day he would look at K-2 and be forced to relive those ugly years of his life.

He worried very, very much about Jyn.

Of course he worried about the simple things, the obvious things- their romantic attachment, and how he did not want to mess this one up. About his worries for inadequacies. Those were simple anxieties, felt by all.

Cassian's worries went a little further.

He worried about the future, which was never a good thing for a spy to dwell on. He worried that when the day came, he would want children, that he would feel that ache in his heart, the longing for a child to call his own. He hoped he never had to feel that, or else he'd be helpless to his whims. And he never wanted wanted to introduce a child to this world, not until the conflicts of the rebellion were a distant memory of the past.

Cassian worried about her getting hurt. Those were worried that made him physically hurt, the ones that made his stomach tie in knots. He couldn't stomach the thought of her being injured, potentially killed, most likely on one of his orders or missions. He knew he couldn't live with that guilt.

He worried about how much he worried about her, most of all.

"You know it's okay, right?" Jyn had said one day, looking up at him with those piercing green eyes, her face impossible to read.

They had finished sparring, lively and intense, ending a long day of training back on the mats. There had been no reason for her sudden outburst, the moment before simply one of silence as they regained their strength, gulping down water. But she had paused and looked at him in that way, as if she had experienced a sudden epiphany.

She must have seen the confused look on his face, and she could read him like a book, a fact that was not entirely pleasant for him.

"It's okay to worry." Jyn said simply, tilting her head to the side, her eyes narrowing as she studied him once again.

"It has to happen. It means that you actually care about something, or someone. And those are the things you should be happy about, that you still care. That you still have a heart through all of," Jyn motioned around them, at the base and the planet around them, at the galaxy in turmoil surrounding them ,"-this."

Cassian almost kissed her there on the spot, the only restraint stopping him being the serious, clear look on her face. So instead he smiled, a genuine action that he actually felt, warm in his chest.

Maybe she was right; maybe his worrisome self was just another flaw of being terribly, devastatingly human.

Cassian was content with his worries.


End file.
